motherboard with really great PCI bandwidth

AltMR · Post by **AltMR** » Sat Aug 07, 2004 9:00 am

Could anybody recommend me a motherboard, which allows to work properly with 3 CW boards connected by STDM bus?
Is really possible to use all DSP's of, for example, 3 Powerpulsars in XTC mode?
I need advice from somebody, who has experienced with it.
Now I have VIA K266a, and I allways see error message "PCI capacity limit reached" if I exceed 50 % of my DSP power (2xPulsar II).

Post by **garyb** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 12:37 am

most intel 800 series chipset based boards will do that. personally, an intel brand mobo is my choice for ease of use ver. performance.....

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:25 am

i'm a Maccer just entering the world of PC, but my research has shown that anything VIA seems to be bad. Check out other's set-ups here.

Mr A

PS. Also you need to be aware that having 9 DSPs spread across three boards is not as good as, say, having a 6 DSP board + 3 DSPs, as you may encounter phase errors if you load a larger device and it gets loaded 'across' the three cards, rather than loaded all on one 6 DSP card (if you see what i mean).

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 1:08 pm

He's talkin about Powerpulsars

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 1:16 pm

Oh yeah, i thought he said 3xPowerSamplers

Still needs to get rid of the VIA though.

valis · Post by **valis** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:27 pm

VIA is definately to be avoided. The heresay is that this year their products finally eliminate all concerns, but they've been saying that since 99 or so...get an Intel chipset.

AltMR · Post by **AltMR** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:08 pm

Thanks, but I asked for concrete examples of motherboards. I thought there were some models which have very good PCI bandwith in particular. You know, I have 2 pulsars II now, and maybe I'll add third board in the future. I just don't want to spend much time on experiments and troubles. I'd like to be sure that I'll be able to exploit all the power of my DSP's.

Post by **garyb** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 7:30 pm

intel d865perl
intel d875pbz

Post by **hubird** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 8:34 pm

MikeRaphone · Post by **MikeRaphone** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 3:17 am

haven't posted anything in a while, just to serve justice- my goode olde KT400 works smooth(knock on wood), and i can load 8-9 masterverbs into my pulsar II before PCI floods , I guess some people have had negative expiriences with VIA chipsets, but this one works fine(Mobo; MSI KT-400V, Athlon)
Dont know how it behaves with multiple boards though, will let you know soon

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:01 am

Hold wood

One can simply not take the risk. I tried VIA in the times of p3, I lost 4-5 months fixing it. It was an interesting journey through computer technics, but this is what AltMR wants to avoid if I understand it well.

I never had PCI bandwidth issues on P4B533 with Intel 845E chipset, it loads 13 Masterverbs or so with is more than I'll ever use. Same has been confirmed by other Pulsarians.
I do have issues with freezes upon loading an STS sampler, I have no idea where these come from :/ I doubt it's mobo related though.

Also, any additional 3rd party hardware with lousy drivers (I think of network cards, USB stuff) can bring the PCI performance to it's knees, so choose the accessories carefully.

Oh, and avoid Deluxe editions of motherboards. A glimpse at the problem and tech forums will tell you why. AGP, IDE, 6 slots - anything else you want on a motherboard? Get a decent PCI card for it.

[ This Message was edited by: at0m|c on 2004-08-11 10:52 ]

AltMR · Post by **AltMR** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:34 pm

On 2004-08-10 20:30, garyb wrote:
intel d865perl
intel d875pbz

Thanks, Garyb.

I must say, that apart from problems with PCI described here, my computer is very very stabile.
My configuration:
Athlon 2000+XP
VIA KT266a, Soltek
768 Mb DDRAM kingston
ATI Radeon 700, 2 monitors
Seagate Baraccuda 60 Gb 7200 rpm
CD-RW LG
2x pulsar II
no additional harware
Win XP Pro with SP 1
Cubase SX 2.2

I tested XTC mode - in project with about 40-50 audio tracks and many native plug-ins (50% CPU), I was able to connect only 6 MasterVerbs on sends (FX channels). I also noticed, that I could't use too many PEQs. So, the main problem is a quantity of connections between Scope harware and host.
I would say, 15 of MasterVerbs would be a good result, but 50 of PEQs would be much better for me...

[ This Message was edited by: AltMR on 2004-08-11 17:57 ]

bronYaur · Post by **bronYaur** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 6:38 am

I have old 850 MRV2 intel MB no Bandwhit problem,I have 3 cards (powerpulsar scope srb and pulsar 2)consider this: http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/cv ... bd_d925xcv&

[ This Message was edited by: bronYaur on 2004-08-13 07:38 ]

dehuszar · Post by **dehuszar** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 8:26 am

Anyone using an Athlon 64? I was doing some research and the "Direct Connect [Market]ecture" claims to open up traditional bottlenecks to and from processor memory. Now the PCI bus is usually what gives us problems, but the goal is to get from the the PCI bus to memory, to the processor. So theoretically, the Athlon 64/Opteron architecture should do great things for our platform. But no one seems to have made much mention of it yet.

Anyone?

Sam

Post by **garyb** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:30 pm

i believe wsippel had a thing for that processor...